


the sky's always falling somewhere (sometimes it's just your turn)

by ifimightchime



Series: Psychic Wolves: Peggy and Her Pack [1]
Category: Agent Carter (TV)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Losing a sibling, Pre-Canon, Psychic Wolves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-15
Updated: 2018-02-15
Packaged: 2019-03-19 05:22:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13697733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ifimightchime/pseuds/ifimightchime
Summary: Bonding young is unusual. Women with wolves are unusual. Human siblings bonded to litter-mates are unusual. And a person with two wolves is unheard of.Peggy just keeps finding new ways to surprise people.





	the sky's always falling somewhere (sometimes it's just your turn)

**Author's Note:**

> I started this fic for Lupercalia last year, and I just couldn't manage to get it in shape to post it. This still isn't exactly what I wanted to post; I've got a little more written, and an idea of where this story would go _way_ beyond the end point here, up through basically all of Peggy's existing canon in the MCU-verse.
> 
> That was _not_ going to get written by the time it rolled around this year, though, so here's a start and hopefully I can manage to keep going with it soon.

“Peg.”

“I’m reading.” It’s a grey summer day, and a book is the extent of plans Peggy has for the next hour. It’s a good book, one she hasn’t managed to finish yet; but the tone in Michael’s voice holds the promise of something even more interesting, and it’s without more than that token protest that she lifts her eyes from the page.

Michael rocks from foot to foot in front of her, looking younger than usual in his eagerness for whatever he’s come up with. “Mr. Davis just called. The pups are old enough to be taken. They’re coming tomorrow.”

The book drops to the couch, forgotten before he finishes speaking, as Peggy swings her feet to the floor and sits up. “I just need my shoes,” she declares even as she’s launching herself off the couch, and Michael barely manages to get out of her way before she goes barrelling into the hallway.

“Two minutes!” he yells after her, and she breaks into a run.

James Davis lives what ought to be an hour’s walk away; with the two of them giddily racing ahead of each other, it takes almost half of that time. Peggy’s flushed and panting in a way that would make Mum shout at her by the time they get there, but she beats Michael by almost a full minute. They’re still catching their breath when the door swings open, and Peggy straightens, trying to compose herself.

“Are you here to meet the wolves?”

Mr. Davis is tall and scarred and stern, but he’s too familiar to be unnerving. His wolf is even less so; she’s spent too many hours wrestling playfully or letting Peggy curl up around her when Mr. Davis came by to see her father. But standing in the doorway between her and probably the only pups she’ll ever get to meet, they’re both suddenly impossibly intimidating.

Peggy knows nothing’s likely to happen; even if by some crazy chance she might be able to bond to a wolf someday, she’s too young for even a pup to choose her. There are fourteen-year-olds who have bonded before, but it’s usually under some kind of strange circumstance; meeting the litter of their father’s friend certainly doesn’t count. Add that to how low the percentage of bonded women is, and it’s almost impossible.

She _knows_ it won’t happen. She can’t help but hope.

Mr. Davis smiles, and Peggy relaxes, no longer waiting to be turned away.

“Come on, then. They’re in the attic,” he says, and it takes all the self-possession she has not to run up the stairs ahead of him. Once glance at Michael’s clenched fist and she knows he feels the same way. The instructions are familiar enough from what she’s read about young wolves -- don’t pick them up, let them come to you; don’t get between the mother and the pups; don’t push them away, just stand and back away if they try to play too roughly -- but she forces herself to stand still in front of the door and listen anyway, until finally, _finally_ , Mr. Davis opens the door and lets them sit with the litter.

It happens too fast to even be sure what’s going on until Peggy’s already in the middle of it. One moment, she’s sitting there calmly as the pups play around them, absently petting the mother as Mary settles between her and Michael; and then one of the pups’ alertness suddenly turns from playful to purposeful, stilling for only a heartbeat before breaking away from the pack and moving directly toward her.

Peggy doesn’t know what she thought it might feel like, but there’s no explaining it after. She’s read about it, asked the few people her family has known with wolves, tried to picture it, but nothing could prepare her for the actuality of it. It settles its fore-paws on her crossed legs, its -- his, she knows, suddenly and absolutely -- head butting against her stomach gently, and it’s like electricity coursing through her. She catches the smell of daisies rising up out of nowhere, and she feels _wanted_ , whole and vibrant and aware of every beat of her heart, the blood being pushed through her veins, the ways the pups’ fur feels under her fingers as they curl in his ruff.

“Oh,” Peggy says, softly, breathlessly, and that’s that; he’s hers now, and she’s his.

It takes her a while to pay attention to anything but the wolf in her lap, but when she looks up, Michael has a pup in his arms, looking just as stunned and excited as she imagines she does.

* * *

They spend another hour enjoying the company before they extract themselves from the litter, who seem eager to play with what they see as two new siblings. There’s some howling and uncertainty when they finally leave with the pups in tow, but it doesn’t last long; the litter is too loose of a pack to stand up to the call of a bond, and the two pups perk up quickly, romping ahead, wrestling each other, and occasionally getting underfoot as they try to discover everything they can down this new path.

Their confidence barely wavers, but with each step closer to home, the steel in Peggy's spine melts a little more. By the time they’re nearly home she’s dragging her feet, her shoulders nervously slumped forward and her hands tangled behind her back. Her brother notices; well, both brothers, as she supposes she now has to start thinking of them. Michael's hand enfolds her arm once the house is in sight, pulling her to an abrupt stop, and her wolf -- he’ll need a name, she realizes absently -- turns back towards them from where he's run ahead.

"Peggy," Michael says gently, and Peggy's head snaps up, more surprised by that than she would be if he'd decided to yell at her. "Let me tell Mum."

She considers arguing, even though she knows he’s right. Mum had barely agreed to let Michael run off and meet the pups at all, worried about the logistics of keeping one in the house and what bonding to one might mean for him. To find out her only daughter walked out with a wolf as well is going to be worse. She swallows and nods, taking hold of Michael's hand when he offers it, and he starts up a steady stream of pointless chatter. It’s soothing, to listen to him talk about radio and cars, and it makes it a little easier to keep moving forward.

Michael walks in ahead of her, the pups skittering in at his heels, pouncing each other and then skidding around to explore. Mum's face goes from worry to confusion in seconds. " _Two_ wolves? Michael, how is that even possible?"

Peggy feels a white-hot flash of fury at the fact that it doesn't even cross her mother’s mind that she might have bonded with a pup -- never mind all the reasons she’d doubted it herself, or that she'd not considered a career suitable to a bond, or that Mum had no reason to think she’d even tried. She steps forward before Michael can get his first few placating words out, points at the slightly larger, lighter colored of the wolves where it's sniffing a table leg, and says, "That one's mine."

"Oh, Peg," Michael says softly behind her, proud and disappointed all at once, but there's a flash of curious contentment across the bond, and Peggy smiles at it.

* * *

"Jack," Michael offers.

Peggy makes a face, lying back; Mum will have another fit when she gets home ("still coming home covered in grass stains; I know you can behave like a lady, Margaret, so why _don't_ you"), but after enduring an hour of fussing and sniping about the bond, Peggy's in no mood to listen to her mother's voice in her head. "No, I don't like that one at all, either. You don't feel like a Jack, do you?" This she directs to her brother's wolf, peeking at her upside-down out of Michael's lap, who makes a small wuff she decides is encouragement. "See, he agrees."

"All right, then, what do you suggest?"

"Hmmm." She considers the cheery pup, reaching a hand up to scratch his ears. 

She can't feel the happy-warmth flowing through him the way she can with her own brother, who's finally giving up on running ahead to explore now that they've seemed to settle, but she swears she can feel _something_ echoing up the bond. The pups are young enough that their scent-names have barely settled into the single note that will get more complicated and unique as they age, and the pack bond between litter-mates might not be terribly strong, but there’s still a reason wolves are usually separated for some time before bonding. There’s still a stronger sense of pack between the two than there would normally be, and Peggy can’t say that she minds terribly. Michael's her blood; their wolves are as well; his wolf would always have been family one way or another.

"Edgar," she decides.

"Edgar," Michael echoes, trying it, and reaches down to take over the scratching from her. "What do you think, boy?" That she doesn't have to be in the wolf's head to see; he barks joyfully, wriggling out of Michael's grasp to lick at her face. Peggy giggles, and Michael laughs as well, throwing up his hands. "I suppose that's settled. But it hardly seems fair. Do I get to name yours?"

"You can _suggest_ ," she allows, and Michael rolls his eyes at her. "But he gets a say. It's only _fair_ ; Edgar did as well." Her wolf, ran out for the moment and aware he's being discussed, makes his way towards them; Michael picks him up, and Peggy feels the _happy-excited-playmate-pack_ thrumming up through the bond.

Michael scrutinizes him until Peggy's on the verge of giggles again, hands clasped over her mouth to keep them in, before he nods once, decisively, and sets the pup down. "Galahad."

"Galahad, like the knight?" she echoes, raising her eyebrows at him.

"Galahad, like the greatest of knights," Michael agrees grandly, addressing the pup directly. "A strong enough name for the both of you. How about it?"

Peggy might be skeptical, but her brother is not; another warm thrum of _happy-good-yes_ runs through her, and her brother -- Galahad now, she supposes -- runs a happy circuit around them when Michael sets him down. "Seems that he likes it, so I suppose my opinion doesn't matter," she says, mostly teasing.

Her wolf finished his romp and settles in next to her, and Michael reaches over to give him a scratch as Edgar squeezes up next to him. "At least Gal accepts my compliments."

"Gal and Ed," Peggy says, pushing up onto one elbow to look at the two of them, snug and content. "Truly the noblest of wolves."

"Only the best for us Carters," Michael agrees seriously, and this time she doesn't hold in her laughter.

* * *

Michael and Edgar go to the front lines. 

Peggy and Galahad go for lengthy runs that leave them panting and sore, trying to outrun the fear and the restlessness both. Code-breaking is a job with no need for wolves; none of the other women in her office have them, and they go back and forth almost daily on whether Gal should stay at home or not. Peggy doesn't need the strange looks she gets with her wolf at her heels, but Gal is uncomfortable and unhappy at home all day, and she isn't all that thrilled to be away from him, either. The separation isn’t far enough or long enough that it ought to be uncomfortable, but there’s still a sense of something missing that she can’t shake when he isn’t there, and the _boredom-worry_ that echoes through the bond now and then doesn’t help.

But it’s a good job. It’s an _important_ job, and Peggy refuses to lose it over something as silly as people being uncomfortable with her wolf, or her wolf being uncomfortable with her work.

Galahad has his own opinions. _We could help_ , he tries to argue, sharing the pride and the triumph that filters to him through the pack bond with Edgar, minimized and dulled by the distance but never entirely destroyed. He won’t listen to reason; it’s frustrating, and the days where she leaves him home begin to outnumber the days when she chooses to keep him close. It doesn't take long before she stops taking him along altogether. 

Being alone outside the walls of their flat becomes routine, except for their long morning runs and the occasional evening one as well. She doesn’t think twice about it until Michael manages to visit home and Peggy, purely out of habit, prepares to meet him for drinks alone. Gal almost pins her to the ground in his attempt to dash out the door before she can leave him behind.

"It's not a good life for him," Peggy confides to Michael, three drinks in and their wolves finally having tuckered themselves out. She doesn’t think Galahad’s looked so content in some time. "He doesn't like being sedentary, but I don't know what else to do. It's a good job. It's contributing a lot more than anything active that anyone will give me," she adds, and it's years of practice and reminders to be a lady that keep the bitterness out of her voice.

Michael looks for a moment like he wants to argue, but he tosses back the rest of his drink and changes the subject. She's relieved. Michael is perhaps the only person who hasn't told her how she's living her life wrong; she'd rather keep it that way.

She should know better than to think he’d leave it at that; Michael wouldn’t refrain from anything because she doesn't want to hear it. In hindsight, the SEO offer should never have been a surprise, but it is.

 _Take it_ , urges Galahad as she stares down at the envelope, her heart racing. She hasn’t even opened it.

“I need to talk to Fred,” she replies, out loud, and Galahad looks at her like it’s a betrayal.

* * *

It takes a while for Galahad to forgive her. She’s fairly certain, after the engagement party, that Edgar never will; he doesn’t like Fred, and he doesn’t like Gal’s boredom, and that makes the choice simple to him. The pack’s best interests say yes, and Peggy said no for someone who is not and probably never will be pack.

It’s uncomfortable, knowing a member of the pack is so unhappy with her, and it keeps her half-ignoring the bond for a little while, trying to ignore the guilt over Galahad’s annoyance and the always-distant echo of Edgar’s frustration.

It comes as a complete surprise, then, when she's being fitted for her wedding dress, and the sense of pain and something _shattering_ comes across the bond, so strong she drops to her knees. There's no one but them there to see it; her mother stepped out of the room only moments ago. No one is there to admonish Gal for tromping on her dress when he comes barreling into her side, pressing himself against her as if she'll disappear should he leave any space.

 _What,_ she thinks, and then, irrationally, _gunpowder-cut grass-blueberries-dry mud_. Gal responds, _blood-fear-something’s wrong_ , wordless and alarmed, before the mingled scents resolve themselves into a name.

"Michael," she gasps, and Galahad howls, and that's all the answer she thinks she needs, the tears coming fast and strong as she clings to her brother's neck. No more Michael. No more Edgar.

Except something about that doesn't sit right, and in the midst of Galahad's pain and her own misery, she can feel something else stretch across the bond, weak and fluttering but there. Something alive, but barely; something missing something vital, something it _needs_.

"Edgar," she barely whispers, her fingers clenching in Galahad's fur. She can't even find any kind of relief, that one of them is still alive; just pain, and sorrow, and the feeling that none of them will ever be whole again.

* * *

The chances of a wolf surviving the shattering of a bondmates’ death is only forty percent across all circumstances; in active warfare, the number drops to nineteen. The doctors say that having another strong bond might be what kept Edgar alive; he’s shaken, stunned, but he should heal fine with time. They’re given the news like it should be a relief, but Peggy gets nothing but guilt from Gal over keeping him alive when Michael is gone, and she can’t help but share the feeling. There’s a hole in her, a part of her torn away with Michael’s death; sometimes she can barely breathe with it. Edgar has it ten times worse. She wonders if death might have been better for him.

But the pain is only grief and shock; Edgar is still young, and still strong. For a wolf on the frontlines, he’s surprisingly unharmed.

When they suggest taking him away, Peggy feels nothing but rage, not even sorrow. It's cleansing. Strengthening.

She goes to the SEO with a suggestion and a demand, all in one.

"They’ve had a pack bond since they were pups," Peggy says, her spine straight as a steel rod, her wolves -- _both_ hers, now, whatever anyone else might care to say -- leaning against each other, Edgar pressed to her leg for strength. "It's the kind of synchronicity that most wolves can only dream of. They'd be a benefit, and we need every bit of help we can get."

The men look uncomfortable; they look unhappy; they look everywhere but at her wolves for as long as they can get away with.

They say yes anyway.

Peggy really doesn't know what she'd have done, had they said no.

* * *

They make a name for themselves almost immediately.

It’s not that they court attention -- mostly the three of them keep to themselves, good at the job but not interested in making friends. But they don’t try to escape it, either. What would be the point? A woman acting as a spy, a woman seen sometimes with one wolf and sometimes another, is bound to catch people’s attention.

Rumors spring up as to how she can be bonded to both of them, and she doesn’t bother to correct the stories. It serves to separate them more, and the outside world only hurts. The wound of Michael’s loss is still too fresh; Edgar can barely bother to offer his scent-name to the other wolves around, and Peggy and Galahad can’t help but stay wrapped in their own grief with his there, crackling through the bond like a looming thunderstorm charges the air.

They work very well, all three of them together. Gal is as good at sneaking and finding as Peggy is, while Edgar is helpful when she needs a touch more training and ferocity on her side; and when she needs to appear harmless for a little while, they keep each other afloat waiting for her return.

It’s not long before they get another offer.

Peggy comes back from an assignment to a letter from the Strategic Scientific Reserve, and the first thing she does is bring it to the pack. Neither of them say anything, listening to her read the offer aloud; the only impression Galahad offers is one of trust, warm and strong, pushed through the bond, and Peggy knows they’ll follow no matter where she ends up leading them.

She arranges a meeting, and after very little deliberation, she walks into the SSR with both wolves at her heels, steeled for the worst reactions. May as well get their questions over immediately, and see how bad it might get.

Colonel Phillips walks into the office where he has her waiting and only spares a brief glance for Galahad and Edgar, piled together at her feet. His expression flickers for a moment, more thoughtful than surprised; Peggy’s hand clenches in Gal’s fur, ready for the first question.

“Sorry for the wait,” is all he says, offering Peggy a hand. His brother makes his way over to greet them both without even a moment’s hesitation.

It's at that moment Peggy is certain she’ll take the offer.

* * *

Peggy doesn’t know what it is that Galahad sees in Abraham Erskine, but he takes to the man before they even reach the SSR camp.

It’s not as if she doesn’t like the man well enough. Even before she’d revealed that she was there to rescue him, a prisoner with no idea what would become of him, Erksine had been kind to her, and she couldn’t help but take notice of that. He seemed a good man, and she was glad to know he’d be free again.

But Gal’s immediate attachment is something else entirely. When she calls him out of his nearby hiding place, he charges immediately to her side, relief flooding through the bond. That much she’d expected; she’d also expected the way he turns to Erskine, finding his scent-name and studying him silently.

“Your wolf?” Erskine asks with a small smile, studying Galahad in return, before holding out a hand towards him.

She does not expect for Gal to take two slow steps across the space between them, nudging at Erskine’s leg before returning to his place by Peggy’s side.

He keeps between them as they make their way towards the SSR vehicle awaiting them, and when they climb in, while Gal settles himself across her feet, his snout rests against Erskine’s leg. Peggy is startled to look down and realize it, confusion jolting across the bond.

 _Friend_ , Galahad communicates, and there’s a connotation of could-be-pack in there that Peggy rarely hears when it isn’t for pragmatic reasons. Colonel Phillips and Allen are of course part of the pack, after listening to them for the past few months; Howard and Da Vinci are hovering on that uncertain edge, out of proximity more than anything else, since Gal and Ed rarely share the same frustrated fondness she can find in herself for Howard’s antics. Erskine should only be with them very shortly, but Gal is content through the bond at his nearness, pushing his scent-name, _chemicals and chamomile_ , at her like she’ll need to remember it.

He hasn’t really taken to anyone since Michael died, and Peggy’s heart aches at the thought, around the hole that’s still trying to heal; but she keeps her face calm as they jolt through the backroads to the safety of the SSR.

* * *

Galahad is projecting _yesyespackyes_ so blatantly through the bond when they ask if Peggy would like to continue working with Erskine’s project that she says yes before she can think better of it. She can’t bring herself to regret it, for the most part. Gal doesn’t want much anymore, and Erskine is genuinely pleasant company; even if he wasn’t, Project Rebirth is fascinating to watch unfold.

They try a litter of pups with the specially formulated serum first, barely older than Gal and Ed were when she and Michael had first met them. Peggy isn’t there for the testing, too aware of the discomfort of both wolves echoing up the bond at the idea of testing the pups this way; she comes in a few hours after, when the experiment has been declared an official success.

“For wolves,” Erskine stresses once again when Phillips says it. “I have some adjustments still to make, for the human version.”

“Everything you’ve tried worked so far,” Phillips says, outright ignoring Erskine’s frown at being reminded of his last trial of the serum. “No reason to think this won’t.”

Peggy tunes out the argument, already sure of how it will end; Phillips will get his way, and they’ll begin finalizing the list of potential recruits for Project Rebirth, but Erskine will wring the few days and weeks out of him that Phillips doesn’t want to give anyway. It’s better for her that way anyway; more time to train the recruits can only benefit everybody, she’s sure.

Instead she watches Ed and Gal among the pups, romping and herding them around. They haven’t looked this young in the last few years, since the war broke out and Ed gained a purpose and Gal gained a restlessness he hasn’t lost yet. There’s only playful joy and near-parental pride radiating through the bond, the bitter taste of loss almost completely gone for the moment, and Peggy smiles to herself.

She’s always known they’d survive the loss, for better or worse; but for the first time, she’s beginning to think all three of them might recover, too.


End file.
